08/13/97- Updated 09:01 PM ET Hiking party warned of flash flood threat

PAGE, Ariz. - A flash flood sent an 11-foot wall of water crashing through a normally dry canyon no wider than a hallway in places, sweeping away a dozen hikers. One person survived and 11 were feared dead Wednesday.

One body was recovered and searchers combing the water, mud and boulders Wednesday had little hope of finding the other 10 alive after Tuesday’s flood.

“I honestly think at this point we’re going to find 11 bodies,” said sheriff’s Detective Gil Moreno.

The hikers - most of them foreign tourists - were in a section of Antelope Canyon where the walls narrow into an awe-inspiring sliver through the gold, red and orange sandstone. The canyon near the Utah state line is so narrow that hikers can touch both sides at some points.

On Tuesday afternoon, it filled with a wall of water after a thunderstorm hit near Page. A severe thunderstorm warning had been issued for the area 45 minutes before the flood, but the spot where the hikers were swept away got only a trace of rain.

An official with the tour company that led five of the hikers into the canyon said there was no indication of trouble. But the police chief of the Navajo Nation, where the canyon is located, said the tour group was warned of the threat of flooding.

Horrified tourists watched from the top of the so-called slot canyon as the 12 were swept downstream.

“They said there was a 10- to 11-foot wall of water that just came screaming down the canyon,” said Joe Wright, a counselor brought in to help the witnesses. “Some of them were standing up above and just had to watch it wash through while the others were down below.”

The body of a woman was recovered Wednesday after it was spotted from a helicopter a mile and a half downstream. Of the 11 missing hikers, two are Americans, seven are French, one is from Britain and one is from Sweden, said sheriff’s Sgt. David Ramos. Five were members of a tour group organized by TrekAmerica, a British company that offers outdoor tours around the country and caters to young Europeans.

The TrekAmerica group’s tour guide was rescued while clinging to a rock at the bottom of the canyon, Sheriff Joe Richards said. Poncho Quintane, 28, was treated at a hospital and released.

“As far as I know, it was a nice lovely day, and there was no indication that this was coming,” said Jeff Sandy, director of international sales and marketing in TrekAmerica’s Rockaway, N.J., office. The guides know “you don’t go anywhere in there if there’s going to be a flash flood.”

However, Navajo Nation Police Chief Leonard Butler said a local resident who collects admission from canyon hikers warned the tour group about the danger of flash flooding because of a storm in the area.

Divers and other searchers checked the four miles of Antelope Canyon between the slot canyon and Lake Powell for other victims but found none before the search was postponed Wednesday afternoon for fear of more flooding.

“They could be buried by the silt and debris, or they could wash all the way down to Lake Powell,” Fire Chief Tom Van Meenen said.

“There are some very steep-sided walls,” said Eileen Martinez, a ranger for the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

It was the fourth devastating flash flood in Arizona in less than a week during the Southwest’s annual monsoon season.

On Sunday, a wall of water rushed through the Havasupai Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon, and hundreds of residents and tourists had to be rescued by helicopter.

About 100 miles southwest of the Havasupai flood, an Amtrak train derailed Saturday after rushing water damaged a low bridge. More than 150 people were injured.

In extreme southern Arizona, a flash flood Aug. 6 killed six illegal aliens crossing a drainage culvert in the border town of Douglas.

By The Associated Press

Friday May 14: Marty picks up Larry at the Phoenix airport. Bob has previously picked up Gary, and we are on the road about 3:30PM. We fill gas in Flagstaff and roll on to our favorite trading post on the rez at Cameron to eat dinner in the beautiful dining room then gawk a bit at the tourist souvenirs. Onward and North on SR89, we turn West on SR89A at Bitter Springs and pull into Lee’s Ferry after crossing the Marble Canyon Bridge. A car camping spot is $12 for the night. Everyone is sawing logs by 9:30PM.

Saturday, May 15: We pack up Bob’s truck with the clean clothes and other stuff (beer) we want waiting at the end of the trip then stash it at the long term parking lot near the boat launch ramp. Everyone piles into Marty’s truck and we head to the Marble Canyon Lodge for a fine breakfast (nice $10 buffet). Returning from Lee’s Ferry to Bitter Springs on SR89A, we turn North on SR89. We stop at the Horseshoe Bend viewpoint overlooking the Colorado River. You have to walk a few hundred yards from the parking lot to get to the overlook, but it is worth the view. This is one of those Arizona Highways Calendar pictures.

We drive thru Page and over the bridge at Glen Canyon Dam. Lake Powell is filling back up. About 30 miles West of Page on Utah Hwy 89, there is a ranger station for the Paria-Buckskin Wilderness Area. The friendly rangerette briefs us on the latest weather conditions and issues us some heavy duty bags for human waste. Everything must be packed out of Paria-Buckskin. We also have some St. Bernard size doggie pooper scooper double wall hand puppets for the same task. You can get these at a pet store. Back in the truck and we are rolling the 4 miles West on hwy 89 to the turnoff at House Rock Ranch Road. Turn Left and proceed 8 miles to the Wire Pass Trailhead parking area. There is a nice solar toilet at the parking area.

Sling the packs on and head on down the dry wash that drops into Wire Pass Canyon. A side trail leads to Coyote Buttes and “The Wave”. This requires a separate day hiking permit to visit and we don’t have one. Wire Pass quickly becomes very narrow. Larry has to crawl on his knees at one point as the canyon walls are only 15” apart at the height of his external frame pack. After 1.7 miles, Wire Pass Canyon joins Buckskin Gulch. Some petroglyphs are found at the junction of the two canyons. We continue downstream in Buckskin Gulch which twists and turns, widens and narrows so you cannot orient which direction you are walking without a compass. GPS does not work here as the sky is often completely obscured by the narrow canyon walls. Our goal for today is an area known as the middle trail escape route, a spot where the canyon widens out to about 50 feet and there are some raised up shelves to camp on that offer some elevation and a class 3+ climb out route to the top of the canyon if there is flooding. Just before we reach our camp spot, we hit a series of pools, some with cloudy smelly stagnant water, some filled with very sticky mud, all very cold as the sun never shines down here. The water was thigh deep and the mud over our ankles in places. There is a strange quality to the mud. It is very wet and sticky for a few inches of depth, then, after you step in it, a dry footprint is left behind. The mud is so thick, it does not reflow into the footprint and someone following you can keep their shoes clean by simply stepping in the footprints of the person that preceded them. This went on for about ½ mile. One pool of water is known as the “cesspool” as it really stinks from washed down garbage and dead animals. We nominated several of the pools for this title as they all smelled pretty bad. We locate our camp spot, clean up the mud from our clothes and shoes and eat dinner before hitting the sack. Plenty of bats swoop around us to keep the bugs at bay. This is a dry camp as the water in the pools we passed thru would be impossible to clean up to be drinkable. Marty and Larry had green pork chili burritos for supper with a mandarin orange cup for dessert. Fine eatin’ for a 7.5 mile hiking day. About 1:30 AM the crinkle of plastic alerts us that the mice have moved in on the food bags hanging from the rock wall next to where we are sleeping. We chase them off, they come back. One mouse doesn’t make it in the skirmish and we ultimately rig the bags from a rope suspended between a tree and a rock as if hanging for bears. Gary ends up moving his food on top of his tent like Bob does. This works well for Bob as mice will not approach a Yeti.

Sunday, May 16: Rise and shine, eggs (hardboiled and brought along) and bacon for breakfast. There was very little mud today on the 4 miles to the confluence with the Paria River. We do pass by some interesting trash in Buckskin however; a big truck tire, a formerly inflated inflatable boat and a 55 gallon oil drum. We speculate the tire and drum washed over the rim and the boat is from some previous hikers attempt to travel in Buckskin Gulch during high water conditions. We lower packs and climb down a 20’ high rock jam using ropes left by other hikers. Someone has hacked steps into part of the rock face that could possibly be used to climb on, but the ropes were in good shape and seemed safer than free climbing down the steps. We did bring our own ropes in case usable ropes were not found at the rocks, always remember the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared”. We ate lunch in the shade of some cottonwoods just before the Buckskin-Paria confluence. As soon as we pass the confluence, we encounter some other people. One couple is from Florida and another couple is from Oregon. They have hiked in from the White House trailhead where we started in 2001. Another party of 2 Germans passes us heading upstream.

About a mile and a half below the junction, we find the first spring, Wall Spring, dripping from the sandstone right into the river. It would take some time to fill water here as although there were many drips of water, they were all very small. Stopping for a break here, a new hat is found lying on the sand. Must belong to one of the other parties we just met because they are now ahead of us. We head on downstream about another 2 miles to Big Spring where we camp for the second night and meet up again with the folks from Florida. Sure enough, the hat belongs to them. Big Spring has two nice gushers that fill a 1 liter bottle in just a few seconds. We’ve covered about 6 hiking miles today with roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy and chocolate pudding for dinner. There are lots of noisy frogs croaking as the sun sets and we snore off.

Monday, May 17: Up and at ‘em, it’s grits with bacon for breakfast. Today we visit the abandoned pump at Judd Hollow, perhaps known as the Adams Pump according to one hiking guidebook. This was an attempt to pump water from the Paria River to the canyon rim for a cattle ranch. It was never successful. The machinery is broken apart, but it is interesting that the rubber belts, although broken (they were intact on our 2001 visit) are still there. 1949 rubber sure is robust. 1½ miles past the pump there is a beautiful grotto in the canyon wall called “The Hole”. A spring runs out the back wall and down into the river. Marty finds the quicksand today. One foot is on solid ground and the other sinks instantly to mid thigh. Remembering Rita Buhrman’s near lost shoe experience from the previous trip, Marty tries to grip his shoe with his toes while slowly rolling his foot upward. Larry offers a hand up and a few seconds later Marty is free of the muck. About 2½ miles further and we are at the end of Wrather Arch Canyon, our campsite for tonight. About 8 miles of hiking today. A few hundred yards up Wrather Canyon we find the creek has pools of clean water to fill our bottles. A big pot of clam chowder is the order for dinner.

Tuesday, May 18: Larry, Bob and Gary head up Wrather Canyon to see the arch. Marty stays behind as he has a sore heel and doesn’t want to put any unnecessary miles on his foot. Wrather Arch is the largest arch in the Buckskin Paria Wilderness area. The canyon is wider each day as we move downstream through the geological layers. About 1½ miles below Wrather Arch Canyon, we find (after a lot of bushwhacking on Larry’s part) Shower Spring. There is significantly more vegetation around the spring than we found on our previous trip, but it is still a lovely fern grotto with nice gushing water spouts. Wild orchids are growing around the spring. We meet two women hiking on their annual Paria trip. Wish we could do this every year. One of them is a former ranger in Paria. We meet them again at the “Last Reliable Spring” where they will camp tonight. We move on to Bush Head Canyon where we meet up again with the couple from Oregon. They thought they were further down stream and were planning on hiking out to Lee’s Ferry the next day. We go a bit farther downstream and camp on a nice sandbar enjoying beef noodles and summer sausage for dinner.

Wednesday, May 19: Grits of course. We take a quick walk upstream in Bush Head Canyon and discover the stream is running nice and clear just a few yards from the river. This saves us from having to pump river water which, although much clearer than on our previous trip still clogs up a filter pretty quickly. The canyon is really widening out now. There are some huge sand dunes that the “high water route” takes us up to. On our 2001 trip we hiked way uphill on these dunes, but we found a lower route that led us across the river where we discovered some petrified wood. About ½ mile further downstream, we arrive at Scorpion Rock, one of the major panels of petroglyphs. We spend about 2 hours around and up the hill from Scorpion Rock and find many more petroglyphs than we saw on our previous trip. We hike on to the Wilson Ranch site. There is a lot of rusting metal and parts of machinery laying around, a corral, and a mechanic’s pit for vehicle work. There was uranium mining here so the spring is suspect. We opt to pump water from the river, which seems to run clearer every day of the trip, so as to dilute any radioactive contamination to the water that may be from the spring. We sleep on a sandbar downstream from the ranch after dining on red beans with rice and bison sausage, same fare we had on our earlier visit to this same campsite.

Thursday, May 20: No cooking this morning, just eating the leftovers. We are hiking by 6:30. The canyon is wide open and this is big cowboy country. Several ruins of ranch buildings are near the trail as well as some broken down corrals. By 9:00 we are at the Lonely Dell Ranch just upstream of Lee’s Ferry. The ranch has lots of historic trash to look at and a pioneer cemetery which is maintained by the descendants of the occupants as well as the park service. The tragic story of the Johnson family is seen on the headstones of their children who died of diphtheria. One of the graves has the same family name as a co-worker of Marty’s. It turns out her husband’s family were pioneers in southern Utah, so the connection is being checked out by the family. First things first, the super multi layered Bag O’ Honey which Larry is carrying today is deposited in the trash can next to the restrooms. We break open Bob’s super ice chest, down a cold one, and head to the showers at Marble Canyon Lodge gas station.

We head down AZ89A to the House Rock Ranch turnoff and 20 miles down a well graded road, we recover the truck.

Off to the North Rim Lodge for a really great dinner after admiring the view of THE canyon on the outside deck. The dining room at the lodge is really one of the fine experiences you should not miss. A fantastic view and great food served by a very friendly staff.

After dinner we look around at the tourist kitch and then retire to a fine camp spot outside the park for a beautiful evening. There are still patches of snow on the ground and we build a fine fire to gaze at until we hit the sack. The breeze sings thru the trees most of the night. Wonderful music.

Friday, May 21: A great breakfast is served up at the Jacob Lake Lodge by the usual friendly, smiling staff of BYU students. We roll on to Marble Canyon for gas, a quick visit to the Cameron Trading Post and then into Flagstaff where we have lunch at Stromboli’s Italian Restaurant before driving into Phoenix.

A fine trip with great hiking companions indeed.

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